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Windows Phone 7 turns out to be perfectly capable of tethering your data signal to a laptop via USB cable, a feature it was though to lack. To access the secret tethering mode, you’ll need to do some diagnostic voodoo, but its pretty straightforward stuff: more like inputting a video-game cheat code than actual hacking.

First, you need to get into the handset’s diagnostic mode. Right now the instructions are only available for Samsung WP7 phones. To do this, dial ##634# and hit the call button, followed by *#7284#. This will give you the above menu, which lets you toggle between the default Zune sync, a diagnostic utility and, yes, a tethered modem.

Back at the computer, use these settings to let it talk to the new modem:

number: *99***1#
user name: WAP@CINGULARGPRS.COM
password: CINGULAR1

Neat, free and fun. What more could you ask for? We’re sure that hacking other, non-Samsung handsets will be possible, too, as soon as somebody works out the proper codes.

According to David K of Mobile Digest, you can connect and disconnect just by plugging or yanking the USB cord. And because WP7 allows Wi-Fi syncing, you don’t even need to change this new tethering setting back – just leave it as it is. I don’t have a Samsung Windows Phone 7 phone to test this on, so let us know how things go in the comments.

Windows Phone 7 Tethers! You Can Do it NOW! Heres How [Mobile Digest]

Samsung Omnia 7 ha il tethering USB! [HD Blog.IT]

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Source:wired.com

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With the iPad’s 9.5-inch screen, who needs an iPhone?

Indeed, after six months of using a tablet, I’m ready to ditch my smartphone for something simpler and more reliable.

The phone I want is a feature phone with a 3G connection and the ability to create a Wi-Fi hotspot for tethering my devices to it.

It should have long battery life, be able to grab and hold on to a voice signal with the tenacity of a bear trap, and be compact yet ruggedly durable.

It could even have an E Ink screen for super low battery consumption. Who cares if the screen is low resolution and has a one-second refresh rate, if all you’re using it for is looking at the occasional text message? (Thanks for the suggestion, Tim!)

The result would be a device I could use for phone conversations and basic texting. Mostly, though, it would supply internet connectivity to my other gadgets. I’d use an iPad or my laptop for e-mail, reading articles on the web, composing blog posts, Twitter, and in short everything else.

Basically I want something like the Nokia 3595 I used for years, before getting a first-gen iPhone, except with the addition of 3G data and Wi-Fi tethering.

After six months of semi-regularly using Apple’s tablet, I’m growing increasingly disenchanted with even the iPhone 4’s high-resolution “retina” display. The thing is just too small to use comfortably.

The more I read on my iPhone, the more sad and tired I get. Bending my neck to stare at a tiny, smaller-than-index-card-sized glowing screen a foot or so in front of my face makes me feel as if my world has shrunk to the size of a playing card.

With the iPad, by contrast, I feel like I’m reading a book. It’s too heavy to hold comfortably for extended periods, but I can prop it up in comfortable positions or slouch with it on my lap. I feel more a part of the world.

The iPhone has other problems, too. Don’t get me started on how often AT&T drops my calls or fails to give me a signal at all.

(And I refuse to get a 3G iPad, or pay extra for its month-to-month data service, no matter how good both are. I’m already paying for 3G data with my phone’s plan — why do I need to buy a second data plan?)

I’ve jailbroken the iPhone and am using the amazing app MyWi to give it Wi-Fi tethering capabilities, so whenever I have a signal, it can feed it to my iPad or laptop. That’s a step in the right direction.

I tried the same thing with a Nexus One awhile back, and that worked, too.

Unfortunately, the Nexus One and the iPhone, like all smartphones, are still too big and fragile. I don’t know of any feature phones that offer 3G and tethering.

Now if only I had something durable and compact, with long battery life, that did the same thing.

Is my ideal phone out there? Let me know if I’m overlooking something obvious. I’d love to be proven wrong on this one.

Photo: Jonathan Snyder / Wired.com

Follow us for real-time tech news: Dylan Tweney and Gadget Lab on Twitter.

Dylan edits Wired.com’s Gadget Lab blog, and likes to write about technology, science, gadgets, and their impact on society and culture. Follow @dylan20 on Twitter

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iPad 4.2b2 tethering preferences by Paul Grave on Twitter

If you install the latest iOS 4.2 beta 2 on your iPad 3G and visit the “Cellular Data” section of the settings app, then you may be in for a rather nice surprise. Right there, underneath the familiar APN settings is a new option: to tether the iPad’s internet connection.

Both of the screenshots here come from the UK, one on the T-Mobile network and the other on 3. A complete lack of reports of this option in the US indicates that tethering on the iPad will follow tethering on the iPhone, and be available only in select markets where the carriers approve. This is far from the first time that an iOS beta has switched on tethering, and it may disappear later.

Why would you want to do this? After all, sharing the data connection from your iPhone to you iPad would seem more sensible, right? I can think of several uses: Sharing a connection with friends (I actually needed this when I was reading in a bar, and the Lady was working on her MacBook with no internet connection). Or perhaps letting you update an iPod Touch’s email and Instapaper before heading out and leaving your iPad in the hotel.

The most useful, though, would not be the sharing of 3G data itself. If tethering lets you set up an ad-hoc network with the iPad, then you could beam photos to it from a Wi-Fi camera in the field. Then my waste-of-money Eye-Fi card might finally become useful.

iPad 4.2b2 tethering preferences [Paul Grave / Twitter]

Internet Tethering coming to iPad? [9to5 Mac]

Follow us for real-time tech news: Charlie Sorrel and Gadget Lab on Twitter.

Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

Photo credit/permission courtesy Marco Arment at Marco.org

The Kindle 3 is a deceptively capable device, but Amazon doesn’t, by default, give you access to a lot of what’s going on under the hood. (The “Settings” menu only has three choices.) This is why some users pop that hood using jailbreaking tools — tools that work on the Kindle 3.

I haven’t taken this step with my new Kindle, but I have read in detail the MobileRead forum posts announcing that the Kindle 3 has been jailbroken and describing how (and why) to do it. Here is a short list of why Kindle users jailbreak their device:

• Installing custom fonts, including support for Asian-language scripts;
• Installing custom screensavers;
• USB networking, or tethering.

All of these hacks risk bricking your Kindle and violating Amazon’s terms of service, but only the last might really cause you problems. Amazon’s free 3G networking (assuming you’ve got a 3G-capable device) is intended to be used for Amazon’s services only, i.e., the Kindle store and the built-in web browser.

Again, read the forums carefully, and do some deep soul-searching and gut-checking before you try any of this out. For now, I’m still pretty happy that I’ve got an easier way to enter in numbers using the built-in keyboard: Press “Alt,” then a key on the top row (Q=1, W=2, etc.). See also this great list of Kindle tips and keyboard shortcuts, again courtesy A Kindle World’s Andrys Basten.

Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

The Gadget Lab crew kicks off this week’s podcast with a look at Dylan Tweney’s ugly new kicks, a pair of surf shoes made of recycled soda bottles. They cost $70. Seriously.

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Moving on from cheesy hippy apparel, Brian X. Chen shares the news of an upcoming Apple press conference, where we can expect new iPods, a major iTunes upgrade (streaming!) and maybe a do-over of the Apple TV.

Apple’s competitors haven’t been so quiet, either. A “leaked” video emerged this week demonstrating Samsung’s Galaxy Tab, a 7-inch, Android-powered touchscreen tablet that looks to be a worthy rival to Apple’s iPad.

Speaking of the iPad Tweney shares a hack for his iPad to gain 3G service at no additional cost with the help of his iPhone. If you jailbreak your iPhone at the site JailbreakMe.com, you can download an app called MyWi to turn the iPhone into a wireless hot spot. Select the hot spot on your iPad et voila 3G-surfing privileges on the tablet without any monthly bills. That’s sweet.

Still, it’s too bad 3G coverage in general is spotty at best (especially here in San Francisco). Dissatisfied customers are in luck: We’ve heard Sprint may give you a free femtocell to boost your service if it’s proving unreliable. Also, an unhappy AT&T customer on Wired.com staff complained loudly enough to score a free femtocell to fix the crappy reception on his iPhone. Who said whining doesn’t pay off?

Like the show? You can also get theGadget Lab video podcast via iTunes, or if you dont want to be distracted by our smiling faces, check out theGadget Lab audio podcast. Prefer RSS? You can subscribe to the Gadget Labvideo oraudio podcast feeds

Or listen to the audio here:

Gadget Lab audio podcast #86

Source:wired.com

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Apple has approved a flashlight application which contains a hidden function: Data tethering for the iPhone. The app, named Handy Light, appeared to be yet another flashlight app, but by working through some amusing network settings and then selecting the colors in the app in the right order, it lets iPhone users share cellular internet connection with another wireless device. Predictably the app has already disappeared from the store.

Handy Light is from developer Nick Lee, and cost just $1 in the App Store. You may remember the $10 Netshare, which did the same thing, and suffered the same fate. Why would you want an app to let you tether the iPhone, when AT&T has finally offered official tethering to its users? Because AT&T’s version costs $20 per month extra, and can only be used with the new, crippled 2GB per month data plans. Those holding onto their old unlimited plans are shut out.

To use the app, you need to create an ad-hoc Wi-Fi network on your computer and connect to it with the iPhone. Then, you need to configure the SOCKS proxy on your computer (changing the IP address to 13.37.13.37, ho ho). After this, you hit the secret light-sequence combo in Handy Light and you’re good to go. Sure, its inelegant, but it is (or was) also cheap. If you managed to get ahold of it while it was still on the store, it should also work with your iPad.

Full instructions for Handy Light, should you have somehow downloaded it and not actually realized its hidden dark side, you can find videos all over YouTube (just search for “handy light”) or you can read the step-by-step at App Shopper. Anyone else will have to do it the old-fashioned way and jailbreak their iPhone.

Handy Light: Tethering App Camouflaged as Flashlight [App Shopper via Macworld]

Follow us for real-time tech news: Charlie Sorrel and Gadget Lab on Twitter..

Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews